Lucile :: :: University of Virginia Library

Lucile

By Owen Meredith [i.e. E. R. B. Lytton]

Lytton, Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton (1831-1891)

[epigraph]

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

II.

CANTO II.

LETTER FROM LORD ALFRED VARGRAVE TO THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXIV.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

III.

CANTO III.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

IV.

CANTO IV. LETTER FROM COUSIN JOHN TO COUSIN ALFRED.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

CANTO V.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

IX. THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS TO LORD ALFRED VARGRAVE.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

VI.

CANTO VI.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

II.

PART II.

CANTO I.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

II.

CANTO II.

I. COUSIN JOHN TO COUSIN ALFRED.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

III.

CANTO III.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

IV.

CANTO IV.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

CANTO V.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

VI.

CANTO VI.

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

VII.

VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVI.

XVII.

XVIII.

XIX.

XX.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVIII.

XXIX.

XXX.

XXXI.

XXXII.

XXXIII.

XXXIV.

XXXV.

XXXVI.

XXXVII.

XXXVIII.

XXXIX.

XL.

XLI.

Collapse All | Expand All expand section

CANTO II.

I. LETTER FROM LORD ALFRED VARGRAVE TO THE COMTESSE DE NEVERS.

‘Bigorre, Tuesday.

‘Your note, Madam, reach'd me to-day, at Bigorre,
‘And commands (need I add) my obedience. Before
‘The night I shall be at Serchon—where a line,
‘If sent to Duval's, the hotel where I dine,
‘Will find me, awaiting your orders. Receive
‘My respects.
‘Yours sincerely,
‘A. Vargrave.
‘I leave
‘In an hour.’

II.

In an hour from the time he wrote this,
Alfred Vargrave, in tracking a mountain abyss,
Gave the rein to his steed and his thoughts, and pursued,
In pursuing his course through the blue solitude,
The reflections that journey gave rise to.

And here,
Dear Reader, (for when was a reader not dear?)
Let me pause to describe you my hero.

III.

We all
Have seen in the world, at an opera or ball,
Or read of in books, or heard sung of in songs,
Or encounter'd, perchance, 'mid the gay idle throngs
Whom at Baden or Homburg, at evening, one sees,
Lounging over green tables, or under green trees,
In the sound of the music, the light of the flambeaux,
Two kinds of Don Juan.

They are Arcades ambo.
The one is Italian or French: a point, rather
Disputed: I think tho', Molière was his father.
For the rest, of his family nothing is known.
Of his sponsors, 'tis said that a croupier was one,
The other an actress at Paris: perchance
His life's a libretto, his birth a romance.
But his name is Don Juan. Of that there's no question.
He boasts a bold beauty. He owns a digestion
Æs triplex et robur, for lobsters and oysters;
The darling of grisettes, the terror of cloisters.
He is insolent, noisy, extravagant, vain.
On the whole, he is vulgar. But one thing is plain,
The women don't think him so. Would you know why?
His name is Don Juan.

We'll let him pass by
Because he's a quarrelsome fellow.

IV.

The other
Some persons have taken, I hear, for his brother.

But this, I believe, is an error.

Indeed,
If, though but for a moment, you'll look with due heed
In the face of this so-call'd relation, you'll see
That he springs from a different family tree.
In fact he is English. One cannot but know it;
His features, his manners, his conduct, all show it.
He belongs to a northern nobility, and
His sire was a Lovelace.

I think that Georges Sand
Must have met him and known him when, after the Peace,
He made the grand tour of the Continent. Greece,
Spain, Italy, Egypt, he ran them all through
While the down on his lip and his chin was yet new.
His classical reading is great: he can quote
Horace, Juvenal, Ovid, and Martial by rote.
He has read Metaphysics ... Spinoza and Kant;
And Theology too: I have heard him descant
Upon Basil and Jerome. Antiquities, art,
He is fond of. He knows the old masters by heart,
And his taste is refined. I must own in this place
He is scarcely good-looking; and yet in his face
There is something that makes you gaze at it again.
You single him out from a room full of men,
And feel curious to know him. There's that in his look
Which draws you to read in it, as in a book,
Of some cabalist, character'd curiously o'er
With an incomprehensible legended lore.
Relentless, and patient, and resolute, cold,
Unimpassion'd, and callous, and silently bold,

Whatever affords him pursuit is pursued
As a wild beast pursues, and devours his food
In the forest, impell'd by the instinct of prey.
You can scarcely despise, tho' abhor him you may;
For you feel, with a thrill, as you track through the world
The course of his destiny, snakily curl'd
In the roses, or branding with thunder the heath,
Some bad angel hath pass'd there. The Angel of Death,
Or Destruction, it may be.

So, leave him.

V.

There are,
Here and there, in Life's great lazaretto, though rare,
Certain men whose disease of the heart is more deep,
Though less deadly. Yet something there is, makes me weep
When I strive to describe them. I search, but in vain,
For the words that should render the portraiture plain.
Nine cycles with Dante my muse hath descended;
In the hollows of hell I have gather'd and blended
All hues of the pale, pulsing flamelight; and yet
The picture is vague as a virgin's regret,
And designs but a shadow, that wavers, and goes,
And returns, on the twilight of thought.

Such are those
Whom my verse would in vain comprehend. Alas! they
Comprehend not themselves.

They are drawn off one way

By their passions, and drawn back again by their heart;
A vague but immortal regret, with its dart,
Pursues them for ever; and drives them with pain
From themselves to the world, from the world back again
To themselves.

Having fail'd at the springs they seek first
To satiate wholly the undying thirst
Of a deathless desire, they would quench it for ever
In the dregs of a sensual opiate;—endeavour
To trample out that which is brightest in them,
The star that is set on their soul's diadem,
Because it has fail'd to enkindle in others
One spark from the glory which nothing quite smothers:
For they cannot all stifle the spirit. At night
They reel home from the orgy beneath the wan light
Of the star that reproachfully leads them. The world
In darkness and dream and oblivion is furl'd;
Their destiny stirs and awakes in them then.
While their cheek with the wine is yet flushing, these men
Arise, and the serpent and ape at their feet
Crouch and huddle. Their hair creeps. Their brow gathers heat
From some seraph that sadly regards them. They start,
Like a god from the clay, into beauty and art.
What breaks from the lip with such passionate strain?
Some wild song of the revel, re-echoed again?
Nay, hark! 'tis the psalm of the soul, as her wings
Are unfurl'd:—'tis the Bard, 'tis no drunkard, that sings!
Heaven opens. Earth yawns. Hell delivers its prey.
The beast and false prophet slink, baffled, away.

The world stands afar off to wonder or scoff—
The chariots of Israel, the horsemen thereof!
The spirit ascends through the heavenly portal,
And the mantle, descending, hath cover'd the mortal!

The man is a profligate sensualist,
The man's life a reckless debauch, you insist:
Let the man's life be all that you will, I appeal
The man's work is immortal—behold it and kneel!
But the life of the man? Can you tell where it lies?
In the effort to sink, or the power to rise?
Can you guess what the thirst is, the man quenches thus?
In vain! shall we tell what he fails to tell us?

VI.

To this class my hero remotely belongs—
A class, doubtless, more common in life than in songs.
If genius he had not, at least he had much
That to genius is kindred: one feverish touch
Of that hunger which urges for ever the soul
To some infinite, distant, impossible goal:
The horseleech's daughter that cries in the heart
With her ceaseless ‘give, give!’ and sits pining apart
From the purpose of all things.

VII.

The age is gone o'er
When a man may in all things be all. We have more
Painters, poets, musicians, and artists, no doubt,
Than the great Cinquecento gave birth to; but out

Of a million of mere dilettanti, when, when
Will a new Leonardo arise on our ken?
He is gone with the age which begat him. Our own
Is too vast and too complex for one man alone
To embody its purpose, and hold it shut close
In the palm of his hand. There were giants in those
Irreclaimable days; but in these days of ours
In dividing the work we distribute the powers.
Yet a dwarf on a dead giant's shoulders sees more
Than the 'live giant's eyesight avail'd to explore;
And in life's lengthen'd alphabet what used to be
To our sires X Y Z is to us A B C.
A Varini is roasted alive for his pains,
But a Bacon comes after and picks up his brains.
A Bruno is angrily seized by the throttle
And hunted about by thy ghost, Aristotle,
Till a More or Lavater step into his place,
Then the world turns and makes an admiring grimace.
Once the men were so great and so few, they appear,
Through a distant Olympian atmosphere,
Like vast Caryatids upholding the age.
Now the men are so many and small, disengage
One man from the million to mark him, next moment
The crowd sweeps him hurriedly out of your comment;
And since we seek vainly (to praise in our songs)
'Mid our fellows the size which to heroes belongs,
We take the whole age for a hero, in want
Of a better; and still, in its favour, descant
On the strength and the beauty which, failing to find
In any one man, we ascribe to mankind.

VIII.

Alfred Vargrave was one of those men who achieve
So little, because of the much they conceive.
A redundantly sensuous nature, each pore
Ever patent to beauty, had yet left him sore
With a sense of impossible power. He saw
Too keenly the void 'twixt the absolute law
And the partial attainment. He knock'd at each one
Of the doorways of life, and abided in none.
His course, by each star that would cross it, was set,
And whatever he did he was sure to regret.
That target, discuss'd by the travellers of old,
Which to one appear'd argent, to one appear'd gold,
To him, ever lingering on Doubt's dizzy margent,
Appear'd in one moment both golden and argent.
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done;
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets. And the worm
That crawls on in the dust to the definite term
Of its creeping existence, and sees nothing more
Than the path it pursues till its creeping be o'er,
In its limited vision, is happier far
Than the Half-Sage, whose course, fix'd by no friendly star,
Is by each star distracted in turn, and who knows
Each will still be as distant wherever he goes

IX.

Both brilliant and brittle, both bold and unstable,
Indecisive yet keen, Alfred Vargrave seem'd able
To dazzle, but not to illumine, mankind.
A vigorous, various, versatile mind;
A character wavering, fitful, uncertain,
As the shadow that shakes o'er a luminous curtain,
Vague and flitting, but on it for ever impressing
The shape of some substance at which you stand guessing:
When you said, ‘All is worthless and weak here,’ behold!
Into sight on a sudden there seem'd to unfold
Great outlines of strenuous truth in the man:
When you said, ‘This is genius,’ the outlines grew wan.
And his life, tho' in all things so gifted and skill'd,
Was, at best, but a promise which nothing fulfill'd.

X.

In the budding of youth, ere wild winds can deflower
The shut leaves of man's life, round the germ of man's power
Yet folded, his life had been earnest. Alas!
In that life one occasion, one moment, there was
When all that was earnest in him might have been
Unclosed into manhood's imperial, serene
Dominion of permanent power. But it found him
Too soon; ere the weight of the light life around him
Had been weigh'd at its worth; when his nature was still
The delicate toy of too pliant a will

The boisterous play of the world to resist,
Or the frost of the world's wintry wisdom.

He miss'd
That occasion, too rathe in its advent.

Since then,
He had made it a law, in his commerce with men,
That intensity in him which only left sore
The heart it disturb'd, to repel and ignore.

And thus, as some Prince by his subjects deposed,
Whose strength he, by seeking to crush it, disclosed,
In resigning the power he lack'd power to support,
Turns his back upon courts, with a sneer at the court,
In his converse this man for self-comfort appeal'd
To a cynic denial of all he conceal'd
In the instincts and feelings belied by his words.
Words, however, are things: and the man who accords
To his language the licence to outrage his soul,
Is controll'd by the words he disdains to control.
And, therefore, he seem'd in the deeds of each day,
The light code proclaim'd on his lips to obey;
And, the slave of each whim, follow'd wilfully aught
That perchance fool'd the fancy, or flatter'd the thought
Yet, indeed, deep within him, the spirits of truth,
Vast, vague aspirations, the powers of his youth,
Lived and breathed, and made moan—stirr'd themselves—strove to start
Into deeds—tho' deposed, in that Hades, his heart.
Like those antique Theogonies ruin'd and hurl'd
Under clefts of the hills, which, convulsing the world,

Heav'd, in earthquake, their heads the rent caverns above,
To trouble at times in the light court of Jove
All its frivolous gods, with an undefined awe,
Of wrong'd rebel powers that own'd not their law.
Yes! still in his nature was more than enough
(Altho' self-disputed) of strong English stuff,
Which, had he been forced to some claim disallow'd
By the world, to push firmly his path thro' that crowd
Amidst which he now lounged, would have welded in one
Earnest purpose the powers now conscious of none,
Because squander'd on many. And therefore, if born
To lome lowlier rank (from the world's languid scorn
Secured by the world's stern resistance), where strife,
Strife and toil, and not pleasure, gave purpose to life,
He, no doubt before this, would have lived to attain
Not eminence only, but worth. So, again,
Had he been of his own house the first-born, each gift
Of a mind many-gifted had gone to uplift
A great name by a name's greatest uses.

But there
He stood isolated, opposed, as it were,
To life's great realities; part of no plan;
And if ever a nobler and happier man
He might hope to become, that alone could be when
With all that is real in life and in men
What was real in him should have been reconciled;
When each influence now from his being exiled
Should have seized on his being, combined with his nature,
And form'd, as by fusion, a new human creature:

As when those airy elements viewless to sight
(The amalgam of which, if our science be right,
The germ of this populous planet doth fold)
Unite in the glass of the chemist, behold!
Where a void seem'd before, there a substance appears,
From the fusion of forces whence issued the spheres!

XI.

As it was, his chief fault was an unconscious awe
Of the little world, falsely call'd great, and the law
Of its lawless dictators;—an awe not indeed
Of that great world which justly on each human deed
Sits umpire, adjudging man's worth o'er man's grave,
Like those solemn Tribunals of Egypt, which gave
Or denied to her dead kings the tombs of the kings:
That grand court of Public Opinion, whence springs
Man's loyal allegiance to lofty control,
Which confines not his life, but concentrates his soul.
For obedience is nobler than freedom. What's free?
The vex'd straw on the wind, the froth'd spume on the sea:
The great ocean itself, as it rolls and it swells,
In the bonds of a boundless obedience dwells.
‘Ah, what will the world say?’.. the world!—therein lies
The question which, as it is utter'd, implies
All that's fine or that's feeble in thought and intent.
The distinction depends on the world that is meant.
Was it base, our own Nelson's life-cry for ‘A place
In Westminster Abbey, and Victory’? Base,

The Hero's last thought—‘Will men murmur my name
In Athens?’ Base? no!

What is man's faith in fame,
But respect for the world's good opinion?

What then?
Is it noble (since man owes submission to men
As the judges of man) the Fop's query—`Those cavillers
‘And gossips, what say they of me at the Travellers’,
‘Or White's?’ Noble? no!

Whence is faith weak in act,
But from fear of the world's false opinion?

XII.

In fact,
Had Lord Alfred found that rare communion which links
With what woman feels purely, what man nobly thinks,
And by hallowing life's hopes, enlarges life's strength,
His shrewd tact had moulded and master'd at length
The world that now master'd and moulded his will.
An affluent sympathy, dexterous skill,
And prompt apprehension in him, would have saved
His life from the failures of those who have braved
The world, with no clue to its intricate plan,
And made him a great, and a practical man.
But the permanent cause why his life fail'd and miss'd
The full value of life was,—where man should resist
The world, which man's genius is call'd to command,
He gave way, less from lack of the power to withstand
Than from lack of the resolute will to retain
Those strongholds of life which the world strives to gain.

For let a man once show the world that he feels
Afraid of its bark, and 'twill fly at his heels:
Let him fearlessly face it, 'twill leave him alone:
But 'twill fawn at his feet if he flings it a bone.

XIII.

The moon of September, now half at the full,
Was unfolding from darkness and dreamland the lull
Of the quiet blue air, where the many-faced hills
Watch'd, well-pleased, their fair slaves, the light, foamfooted rills,
Dance and sing down the steep marble stairs of their courts,
And gracefully fashion a thousand sweet sports.
Like ogres in council those mountains look'd down,
Impassive, each king in his purple and crown.
Lord Alfred (by this on his journeyings far)
Was pensively puffing his Lopez cigar,
And brokenly humming an old opera strain,
And thinking, perchance, of those castles in Spain
Which that long rocky barrier hid from his sight;
When suddenly, out of the darkness of night,
A horseman emerged from a fold of the hill,
And so startled his steed, that was winding at will
Up the thin dizzy strip of a pathway which led
O'er the mountain—the reins on its neck, and its head
Hanging lazily forward—that, but for a hand
Light and ready, yet firm, in familiar command,
Both rider and horse might have been in a trice
Hurl'd horribly over the grim precipice.

XIV.

As soon as the moment's alarm had subsided,
And the oath, with which nothing can find unprovided
A thoroughbred Englishman, safely exploded,
Lord Alfred unbent (as Apollo his bow did
Now and then) his erectness; and looking, not ruder
Than such inroad would warrant, survey'd the intruder,
Whose arrival so nearly cut short in his glory
My hero, and finish'd abruptly this story.

XV.

The stranger, a man of his own age or less,
Well mounted, and simple though rich in his dress,
Wore his beard and moustache in the fashion of France.
His face, which was pale, gather'd force from the glance
Of a pair of dark, vivid, and eloquent eyes.
With a gest of apology, touch'd with surprise,
He lifted his hat, bow'd, and courteously made
Some excuse in such well-cadenced French as betray'd,
At the first word he spoke, the Parisian.

XVI.

I swear
I have wander'd about in the world everywhere;
From many strange mouths have heard many strange tongues;
Strain'd with many strange idioms my lips and my lungs;
Walk'd in many a far land, regretting my own;
In many a language groan'd many a groan;

And have often had reason to curse those wild fellows
Who built the high house at which Heaven turn'd jealous,
Making human audacity stumble and stammer
When seized by the throat in the hard gripe of Grammar.
But the language of languages dearest to me
Is that in which once, O ma toute chérie,
When, together, we bent o'er your nosegay for hours,
You explain'd what was silently said by the flowers,
And, selecting the sweetest of all, sent a flame
Through my heart, as, in laughing, you murmur'd je t' aime.
O my Rosebud of Paestum, whose bloom never dies!
Now dead on my bosom that dear flow'ret lies;
But the meaning you gave to it then cannot fade;
In my being it blooms, and its fragrance hath made
A garden within me, where memory strays,
Evermore, with faint footfalls, down blossoming ways.

XVII.

The Italians have voices like peacocks; the Spanish
Smell, I fancy, of garlic; the Swedish and Danish
Have something too Runic, too rough and unshod, in
Their accent for mouths not descended from Odin;
German gives me a cold in the head, sets me wheezing
And coughing; and Russian is nothing but sneezing;
But, by Belus and Babel! I never have heard,
And I never shall hear (I well know it), one word
Of that delicate idiom of Paris without
Feeling morally sure, beyond question or doubt,
By the wild way in which my heart inwardly flutter'd,
That my heart's native tongue to my heart had been utter'd.

And whene'er I hear French spoken as I approve,
I feel myself quietly falling in love.

XVIII.

Lord Alfred, on hearing the stranger, appeased
By a something, an accent, a cadence, which pleased
His ear with that pledge of good breeding which tells
At once of the world in whose fellowship dwells
The speaker that owns it, was glad to remark
In the horseman a man one might meet after dark
Without fear.

Not unfavourably thus impress'd,
As it seem'd, with each other, the two men abreast
Rode on slowly a moment.

XIX.

Stranger.
I see, Sir, you are
A smoker. Allow me!

Lord Alfred.
Pray take a cigar.

Stranger.
Many thanks!... Such cigars are a luxury here.
Do you go to Serchon?

Lord Alfred.
Yes; and you?

Stranger.
Yes. I fear,

Since our road is the same, that our journey must be
Somewhat closer than is our acquaintance. You see
How narrow the path is. I'm tempted to ask
Your permission to finish (no difficult task!)
The cigar you have given me (really a prize!)
In your company.

Lord Alfred.

Charm'd, Sir, to find your road lies
In the way of my own inclinations! Indeed
The dream of your nation I find in this weed.
In the distant Savannahs a talisman grows
That makes all men brothers that use it ... who knows?
That blaze which erewhile from the Boulevart outbroke,
It has ended where wisdom begins, Sir,—in smoke.
Messieurs Lopez (whatever your publicists write)
Have done more in their way human kind to unite
Than ten Prudhons perchance.

What a wonderful spot!
This air is delicious; the day was too hot.

Stranger.
Ah, yes! did you chance scarce a half-hour ago
To remark that miraculous sunset?

Lord Alfred.
Why, no.

Stranger.
All the occident, fused in one fierce conflagration,
Stream'd flame: and the hills, as in grim expectation,

Scarr'd and hoary stood round, like severe hierophants
When at some savage rite the red flame breathes and pants
And expands for a victim.

Lord Alfred.
A very old trick!
One would think that the sun by this time must be sick
Of blushing with such a parade of disdain
For this frivolous world he enlightens in vain.
I see you're a poet.

Stranger.
Who is not, alone
In these mountains? For me, though, I own I am none.
Man's life is but short, and the youth of a man
Is yet shorter. I wish to enjoy what I can.
A sunset, if only a sunset be near;
A moon such as this, if the weather be clear;
A good dinner, if hunger come with it; good wine,
If I'm thirsty; a fire, if I'm cold; and, in fine,
If a woman is pretty, to me 'tis no matter,
Be she blonde or brunette, so she lets me look at her.

Lord Alfred.
I suspect that at Serchon, if rumour speak true,
Your choice is not limited.

Stranger.
Yes. One or two
Of our young Paris ladies remain there, but yet
The season is over.

Lord Alfred.
I almost forget
The place; but remember when last I was there,
I thought the best part of it then was the air
And the mountains.

Stranger.
No doubt! all these baths are the same.
One wonders for what upon earth the world came
To seek, under all sorts of difficulties,
The very same things in the far Pyrenees
Which it fled from at Paris. Health, which is, no doubt,
The true object of all, not a soul talks about.
'Tis a sort of religion.

Lord Alfred.
You know the place well?

Stranger.
I have been there two seasons.

Lord Alfred.
Pray who is the Belle
Of the Baths at this moment?

Stranger.
The same who has been
The belle of all places in which she is seen;
The belle of all Paris last winter; last spring
The belle of all Baden.

Lord Alfred.
An uncommon thing!

Stranger.
Sir, an uncommon beauty!... I rather should say,
An uncommon character. Truly, each day
One meets women whose beauty is equal to hers,
But none with the charm of Lucile de Nevers.

Lord Alfred.
Madame de Nevers!

Stranger.
Do you know her?

Lord Alfred.
I know,
Or, rather, I knew her,—a long time ago.
I almost forget....

Stranger.
What a wit! what a grace
In her language! her movements! what play in her face!
And yet what a sadness she seems to conceal!

Lord Alfred.
You speak like a lover.

Stranger.
I speak as I feel,
But not like a lover. What interests me so
In Lucile, at the same time forbids me, I know,
To give to that interest, whate'er the sensation,
The name we men give to an hour's admiration,
A night's passing passion, an actress's eyes,
A dancing girl's ankles, a fine lady's sighs.

Lord Alfred.
Yes, I quite comprehend. But this sadness—this shade
Which you speak of? ... it almost would make me afraid
Your gay countrymen, Sir, less adroit must have grown,
Since when, as a stripling, at Paris, I own
I found in them terrible rivals,—if yet
They have all lack'd the skill to console this regret
(If regret be the word I should use), or fulfil
This desire (if desire be the word), which seems still
To endure unappeased. For I take it for granted,
From all that you say, that the will was not wanted.

XX.

The stranger replied, not without irritation:
‘I have heard that an Englishman—one of your nation
‘I presume—and if so, I must beg you, indeed,
‘To excuse the contempt which I...’

Lord Alfred.
Pray, Sir, proceed
With your tale. My compatriot, what was his crime?

Stranger.
Oh, nothing! His folly was not so sublime
As to merit that term. If I blamed him just now,
It was not for the sin, but the silliness.

Lord Alfred.
How?

Stranger.
I own I hate Botany. Still, ... I admit,
Although I myself have no passion for it,

And do not understand, yet I cannot despise
The cold man of science, who walks with his eyes
All alert through a garden of flowers, and strips
The lilies' gold tongues, and the roses' red lips,
With a ruthless dissection; since he, I suppose,
Has some purpose beyond the mere mischief he does.
But the stupid and mischievous boy, that uproots
The exotics, and tramples the tender young shoots
For a boy's brutal pastime, and only because
He knows no distinction 'twixt heartsease and haws,—
One would wish, for the sake of each nurseling so nipp'd,
To catch the young rascal and have him well whipp'd!

Lord Alfred.
Some compatriot of mine, do I then understand,
With a cold Northern heart, and a rude English hand,
Has injured your Rosebud of France?

Stranger.
Sir, I know
But little, or nothing. Yet some faces show
The last act of a tragedy in their regard:
Though the first scenes be wanting, it yet is not hard
To divine, more or less, what the plot may have been,
And what sort of actors have pass'd o'er the scene.
And whenever I gaze on the face of Lucile,
With its pensive and passionless languor, I feel
That some feeling hath burnt there ... burnt out, and burnt up
Health and hope. So you feel when you gaze down the cup

Of extinguish'd volcanoes: you judge of the fire
Once there, by the ravage you see;—the desire,
By the apathy left in its wake, and that sense
Of a moral, immoveable, mute impotence.

Lord Alfred.
Humph! ... I see you have finish'd, at last, your cigar:
Can I offer another?

Stranger.
No, thank you. We are
Not two miles from Serchon.

Lord Alfred.
You know the road well?

Stranger.
I have often been over it.

XXI.

Here a pause fell
On their converse. Still, musingly on, side by side,
In the moonlight, the two men continued to ride
Down the dim mountain pathway. But each, for the rest
Of their journey, altho' they still rode on abreast,
Continued to follow in silence the train
Of the different feelings that haunted his brain;
And each, as though roused from a deep reverie,
Almost shouted, descending the mountain, to see
Burst at once on the moonlight the silvery Baths,
The long lime-tree alley, the dark gleaming paths,

With the lamps twinkling through them—the quaint wooden roofs—
The little white houses.

The clatter of hoofs,
And the music of wandering bands, up the walls
Of the steep hanging hill, at remote intervals
Reach'd them, cross'd by the sound of the clacking of whips,
And here and there, faintly, through serpentine slips
Of verdant rose-gardens, dew-shelter'd with screens
Of airy acacias and dark evergreens,
They could mark the white dresses, and catch the light songs,
Of the lovely Parisians that wander'd in throngs
Led by Laughter and Love through the cool eventide,
Down the dream-haunted valley, or up the hill-side.

XXII.

At length, at the door of the inn l'Herisson,
(Pray go there, if ever you go to Serchon!)
The two horsemen, well pleased to have reach'd it, alighted
And exchanged their last greetings.

The Frenchman invited
Lord Alfred to dinner. Lord Alfred declined.
He had letters to write, and felt tired. So he dined
In his own rooms that night.

With an unquiet eye
He watch'd his companion depart; nor knew why,
Beyond all accountable reason or measure,
He felt in his breast such a sovran displeasure.

‘The fellow's good-looking,’ he murmur'd at last,
‘And yet not a coxcomb.’ Some ghost of the past
Vex'd him still.

‘If he love her,’ he thought, ‘let him win her.’
Then he turn'd to the future—and order'd his dinner.

XXIII.

O hour of all hours, the most bless'd upon earth,
Blessèd hour of our dinners!

The land of his birth;
The face of his first love; the bills that he owes;
The twaddle of friends, and the venom of foes;
The sermon he heard when to church he last went;
The money he borrow'd, the money he spent;—
All of these things a man, I believe, may forget,
And not be the worse for forgetting; but yet
Never, never, oh never! earth's luckiest sinner
Hath unpunish'd forgotten the hour of his dinner!
Indigestion, that conscience of every bad stomach,
Shall relentlessly gnaw and pursue him with some ache
Or some pain; and trouble, remorseless, his best ease,
As the Furies once troubled the sleep of Orestes.

XXIV.

We may live without poetry, music, and art;
We may live without conscience, and live without heart;
We may live without friends; we may live without books;
But civilized man cannot live without cooks.

He may live without books,—what is knowledge but grieving?
He may live without hope,—what is hope but deceiving?
He may live without love,—what is passion but pining?
But where is the man that can live without dining?

XXV.

Lord Alfred found, waiting his coming, a note
From Lucile.

‘Your last letter has reach'd me,’ she wrote.
‘This evening, alas! I must go to the ball,
‘And shall not be at home till too late for your call,
‘But to-morrow, at any rate, sans faute, at One
‘You will find me at home, and will find me alone.
‘Meanwhile, let me thank you sincerely, milord,
‘For the honour with which you adhere to your word.
‘Yes, I thank you, Lord Alfred! To-morrow, then.
‘L.’

XXVI.

I find myself terribly puzzled to tell
The feelings with which Alfred Vargrave flung down
This note, as he pour'd out his wine. I must own
That I think he, himself, could have hardly explain'd
Those feelings exactly.

‘Yes, yes,’ as he drain'd
The glass down, he mutter'd, ‘Jack's right, after all:
‘The coquette!’

‘Does milord mean to go to the ball?’

Ask'd the waiter, who linger'd.

‘Perhaps. I don't know
‘You may keep me a ticket, in case I should go.’

XXVII.

Oh, better, no doubt, is a dinner of herbs,
When season'd by love, which no rancour disturbs,
And sweeten'd by all that is sweetest in life,
Than turbot, bisque, ortolans, eaten in strife!
But if, out of humour, and hungry, alone
A man should sit down to a dinner, each one
Of the dishes of which the cook chooses to spoil
With a horrible mixture of garlic and oil,
The chances are ten against one, I must own,
He gets up as ill-temper'd as when he sat down.
And if any reader this fact to dispute is
Disposed, I say ... ‘Allium edat cicutis
‘Nocentius!’

Round the fruit and the wine
Undisturb'd the wasp settled. The evening was fine.
Lord Alfred his chair by the window had set,
And languidly lighted his small cigarette.
The window was open. The warm air without
Waved the flame of the candles. The moths were about.
In the gloom he sat gloomy.

XXVIII.

Gay sounds from below
Floated up like faint echoes of joys long ago,

And night deepen'd apace: through the dark avenues
The lamps twinkled bright; and by threes, and by twos,
The idlers of Serchon were strolling at will,
As Lord Alfred could see from the cool window-sill,
Where his gaze, as he languidly turn'd it, fell o'er
His late travelling companion, now passing before
The inn, at the window of which he still sat,
In full toilette,—boots varnish'd, and snowy cravat,
Gaily smoothing and buttoning a yellow kid glove,
As he turn'd down the avenue.

Watching above,
From his window, the stranger, who stopp'd as he walk'd
To mix with those groups, and now nodded, now talk'd,
To the young Paris dandies, Lord Alfred discern'd,
By the way hats were lifted, and glances were turn'd,
That his unknown acquaintance, now bound for the ball,
Was a person of rank and of fashion; for all
Whom he bow'd to in passing, or stopp'd with and chatter'd,
Walk'd on with a look which implied ... ‘I feel flatter'd!’

XXIX.

His form was soon lost in the distance and gloom.

XXX.

Lord Alfred still sat by himself in his room.
He had finish'd, one after the other, a dozen
Or more cigarettes. He had thought of his cousin:

He had thought of Matilda, and thought of Lucile:
He had thought about many things: thought a great deal
Of himself: of his past life, his future, his present:
He had thought of the moon, neither full moon nor crescent:
Of the gay world, so sad! life, so sweet and so sour!
He had thought too, of glory, and fortune, and power:
Thought of love, and the country, and sympathy, and
A poet's asylum in some distant land:
Thought of man in the abstract, and woman, no doubt,
In particular; also he had thought much about
His digestion, his debts, and his dinner: and last,
He thought that the night would be stupidly pass'd
If he thought any more of such matters at all:
So he rose, and resolved to set out for the ball.

XXXI.

I believe, ere he finish'd his tardy toilette,
That Lord Alfred had spoil'd, and flung by in a pet,
Half-a-dozen white neckcloths, and look'd for the nonce
Twenty times in the glass, if he look'd in it once.
I believe that he split up, in drawing them on,
Three pair of pale lavender gloves, one by one.
And this is the reason, no doubt, that at last,
When he reach'd the Casino, although he walk'd fast,
He heard, as he hurriedly enter'd the door,
The church clock strike Twelve.

XXXII.

The last waltz was just o'er.
The chaperons and dancers were all in a flutter.
A crowd block'd the door: and a buzz and a mutter
Went about in the room as a young man, whose face
Lord Alfred had seen ere he enter'd that place,
But a few hours ago, through the perfumed and warm
Flowery porch, with a lady that lean'd on his arm
Like a queen in a fable of old fairy days,
Left the ballroom.

XXXIII.

The hubbub of comment and praise
Reach'd Lord Alfred as just then he enter'd.

‘Ma foi!’
Said a Frenchman beside him,... ‘That lucky Luvois
‘Has obtain'd all the gifts of the gods ... rank and wealth,
‘And good looks, and then such inexhaustible health!
‘He that hath shall have more; and this truth, I surmise,
‘Is the cause why, to-night, by the beautiful eyes
‘Of la charmante Lucile more distinguish'd than all,
‘He so gaily goes off with the belle of the ball.’
‘Is it true,’ ask'd a lady aggressively fat,
Who, fierce as a female Leviathan, sat
By another that look'd like a needle, all steel
And tenuity—‘Luvois will marry Lucile?’
The needle seem'd jerk'd by a virulent twitch,
As tho' it were bent upon driving a stitch
Thro' somebody's character.

‘Madam,’ replied
Interposing a young man who sat by their side,
And was languidly fanning his face with his hat,
‘I am ready to bet my new Tilbury that,
‘If Luvois has proposed, the Comtesse has refused.’
The fat and thin ladies were highly amused.
‘Refused!... what! a young Duke, not thirty, my dear,
‘With at least half a million (what is it?) a year!’
‘That may be,’ said the third; ‘yet I know some time ‘since
‘Castelmar was refused, though as rich, and a Prince.
‘But Luvois, who was never before in his life
‘In love with a woman who was not a wife,
‘Is now certainly serious.’

XXXIV.

The music once more
Recommenced.

XXXV.

Said Lord Alfred, ‘This ball is a bore!’
And return'd to the inn, somewhat worse than before.

XXXVI.

There, whilst musing he lean'd the dark valley above,
Thro' the warm land were wand'ring the spirits of love.
A soft breeze in the white window drapery stirr'd;
In the blossom'd acacia the lone cricket chirr'd;
The scent of the roses fell faint o'er the night,
And the moon on the mountain was dreaming in light.

Repose, and yet rapture! that pensive wild nature
Impregnate with passion in each breathing feature!
Like a maiden withdrawn in her chamber, while yet
Her lip with her first lover's first kiss is wet,
In the bloom of its virginal blossom, who hears
Her full heart beat loud in her small rosy ears,
Through the exquisite silence of passionate trance,
Whilst, reveal'd in the light of youth's tender romance,
Life's first great discovery dreamily moves
Into sweet self-surprise—she is loved, and she loves!

XXXVII.

A stone's throw from thence, through the large lime-trees peep'd,
In a garden of roses, a white châlet, steep'd
In the moonbeams. The windows oped down to the lawn;
The casements were open; the curtains were drawn;
Lights stream'd from the inside; and with them the sound
Of music and song. In the garden, around
A table with fruits, wine, tea, ices, there set,
Half-a-dozen young men and young women were met.
Light, laughter, and voices, and music, all stream'd
Through the quiet-leaved limes. At the window there seem'd
For one moment the outline, familiar and fair,
Of a white dress, a white neck, and soft dusky hair,
Which Lord Alfred remember'd ... a moment or so
It hover'd, then pass'd into shadow; and slow
The soft notes, from a tender piano upflung,
Floated forth, and a voice unforgotten thus sung:—

‘Hear a song that was born in the land of my birth!
‘The anchors are lifted, the fair ship is free,
‘And the shout of the mariners floats in its mirth
‘'Twixt the light in the sky and the light on the sea.

‘And this ship is a world. She is freighted with souls,
‘She is freighted with merchandise: proudly she sails
‘With the Labour that stores, and the Will that controls
‘The gold in the ingots, the silk in the bales.

‘From the gardens of Pleasure, where reddens the rose,
‘And the scent of the cedar is faint on the air,
‘Past the harbours of Traffic, sublimely she goes,
‘Man's hopes o'er the world of the waters to bear!

‘Where the cheer from the harbours of Traffic is heard,
‘Where the gardens of Pleasure fade fast on the sight,
‘O'er the rose, o'er the cedar, there passes a bird;
‘'Tis the Paradise Bird, never known to alight.

‘And that bird, bright and bold as a Poet's desire,
‘Roams her own native heavens, the realms of her birth.
‘There she soars like a seraph, she shines like a fire,
‘And her plumage hath never been sullied by earth.

‘And the mariners greet her; there's song on each lip,
‘For that bird of good omen, and joy in each eye.
‘And the ship and the bird, and the bird and the ship,
‘Together go forth over ocean and sky.

‘Fast, fast fades the land! far the rose-gardens flee,
‘And far fleet the harbours. In regions unknown
‘The ship is alone on a desert of sea,
‘And the bird in a desert of sky is alone.

‘In those regions unknown, o'er that desert of air,
‘Down that desert of waters—tremendous in wrath—
‘The storm-wind Euroclydon leaps from his lair,
‘And cleaves, through the waves of the ocean, his path.

‘And the bird in the cloud, and the ship on the wave,
‘Overtaken, are beaten about by wild gales;
‘And the mariners all rush their cargo to save,
‘Of the gold in the ingots, the silk in the bales.

‘Lo! a wonder, which never before hath been heard,
‘For it never before hath been given to sight;
‘On the ship hath descended the Paradise Bird,
‘The Paradise Bird, never known to alight!

‘The bird which the mariners bless'd, when each lip
‘Had a song for the omen that gladden'd each eye;
‘The bright bird for shelter hath flown to the ship
‘From the wrath on the sea and the wrath in the sky.

‘But the mariners heed not the bird any more.
‘They are felling the masts—they are furling the sails;
‘Some are working, some weeping, and some wrangling o'er
‘Their gold in the ingots, their silk in the bales.

‘Souls of men are on board; wealth of man in the hold;
‘And the storm-wind Euroclydon sweeps to his prey;
‘And who heeds the bird? “Save the silk and the gold!”
‘And the bird from her shelter the gust sweeps away!

‘Poor Paradise Bird! on her lone flight once more
‘Back again in the wake of the wind she is driven—
‘To be whelm'd in the storm, or above it to soar,
‘And, if rescued from ocean, to vanish in heaven!

‘And the ship rides the waters, and weathers the gales:
‘From the haven she nears the rejoicing is heard.
‘All hands are at work on the ingots, the bales,
‘Save a child, sitting lonely, who misses—the Bird!’

The idea which is imperfectly embodied in this song was suggested to me by a friend, to whom I am indebted for so much throughout this poem, that I gladly avail myself of this passing opportunity, in acknowledging the fact, to record my grateful sense of it. I name him not. When he reads these words his heart will comprehend what is in mine while I write them.